Acne patients often ask doctors: Which food do I have to avoid? Which kind of food may improve the symptoms of acne?
All dairy and all high glycemic load foods. See attached for the science.
Article Turning acne on/off via mTORC1
This article can be useful.
Acne: An understanding of the disease and its impact on life
http://www.ijddr.in/Dacuments/5/2.pdf
Years ago, I talked about this with Prof John Ebling from Sheffield University. He said their studies have indicated that, in some people, refined sugars aggravated acne. However, as with most things, what affects one person may not affect another.
It's a polemic subject without strong and large RCTs confirming the influence of food on acne. “A suitable diet attenuating increased mTORC1 activity is a Palaeolithic-like diet with reduced intake of sugar, hyperglycaemic grains, milk and milk products but enriched consumption of vegetables and fish” is an interesting expert opinion and conclusion in Hautarzt 2013;64(4):252-62.
I was told that food per se does not impact acne. I am not sure this is absolutely true. So I will stick with this "dogma" but have to consider the old adage: we are what we eat. The last word may not be out:
J Acad Nutr Diet. 2013 Mar;113(3):416-30. doi: 10.1016/j.jand.2012.11.016.
Acne: the role of medical nutrition therapy.
Burris J1, Rietkerk W, Woolf K.
What surprises me most about this issue is that there is such a question at all and science has not given a clean and clear answer. Are the studies not well designed? Is it a Western disease associated with Western life style (and diet)? Is it associated with skin type? In the end it is an infection and people respond to infections very differently. Simple example I just learned about: If you are bitten by a tick carrying Lyme disease bacteria you may or may not exhibit a "bull's eye" reaction at the bite site, but still can get infected and are actually potentially more prone to the full Lyme disease. Why? So perhaps something similar is true for acne and some of us fight the bacteria more violently than others.
Sorry, no clear and simple answer here. But interesting to see how answer change over time. Then I was young, the main culprit was food, then hygiene, then just how much the bacteria had to thrive on etc.
It is still controversial but in some people, refined sugars may aggravate acne.
Here's a recent 'n of 1'
http://headlinesamerica.com/the-great-dairy-experiment-can-giving-up-cows-milk-help-your-acne-i-tested-it-out
some patients find aggravation of their acne after milk, dairy product, chocolate, sweets. Prior studies did not confirm the relationship with foods, but some recent support this. Perhaps it`s individually.
A wealth of folklore has blamed acne on certain foods, in particular chocolate and pork fat, but scientific proof is lacking. Chocolate, for example, appears to have no significant influence ; severe dietary restriction resulting in marked weight loss reduces seborrhoea, but cannot be considered as routine treatment. Acne occurs less frequently in Zambia, Nigeria and Japan , where diets differ markedly from those in Western Europe, but the lower incidence could be due to other environmental or genetic factors. These authors suggest that the diet in the Western civilization has a high glycaemic index, which in turn can trigger insulin and insulin-like growth factor that influence androgens and retinoids. This could thereby induce seborrhoea, comedones and acne. The possible effect of nutrition on the age of puberty may be relevant, as acne is more likely after the start of sexual
development, and this occurs when the body weight attains about 48 kg. A personal study of 100 acne patients found no link between acne severity, caloric intake, carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, minerals, amino acids or vitamins.
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